Taiwan travel

http://www.worldtravelguide.net/country/27...sia/Taiwan.html

Think of Taiwan and the first thing that will spring to mind is probably the 'Made in Taiwan' labels attached to so many clothes purchased in the Western world, which will have no doubt contributed to the perception of Taiwan as some industrial landscape defined by hundreds of factories and warehouses, and precious little else to offer visitors. Taiwan might have been known as one of the 'tiger' economies of Asia, but few people, until recently at least, thought of this small island off the southeast coast of China as a potential tourist destination.

Formerly called 'Formosa' (Portuguese for 'beautiful'), Taiwan was originally inhabited by mainland Chinese until the 17th century, before being occupied by the Dutch and Spanish for a while. It then fell under Chinese rule again for a couple of centuries, before being occupied by the Japanese from 1895 until the end of WW2.

The Chinese Civil War, which had already been in progress for some years, came to a head in 1948. The nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek were defeated by Mao's Communists, and the nationalist leadership, along with thousands of supporters, fled to Taiwan. Here, their political vehicle, the Kuo Min-Tang (KMT) rapidly came to dominate Taiwanese politics. The KMT was spectacularly successful at developing the economy and, in less than a century, Taiwan made a successful transition from an agricultural-based economy to an industrial one. In March 2000, however, the main opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), gained control of the presidency through its candidate Chen Shui-Bian, and for the first time, the KMT was completely excluded from political power.

For all practical purposes, Taiwan has been independent for half a century, but the fledgling democracy is still regarded by China as a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland. The political issue of its relationship with China remains a sticking point in international relations, with both sides prone to exchanging rhetoric and political point-scoring on a regular basis. More than 700 Chinese missiles are aimed at the island but the military threat is partly offset by the pivotal relationship between Taipei and Washington (the US, which has no diplomatic ties with Taiwan, is nevertheless the main provider of arms to the island - one of the world's big arms purchasers).

2004 was the Year of Tourism in Taiwan and, since then, the country has focused on promoting its historical and cultural treasures in a bid to attract more tourists. Taiwan certainly has plenty to offer, from truly unique scenery to exciting sporting activities and colourful festivals, not to mention the most varied Chinese food on earth (Taipei is a gourmet's paradise, boasting cuisine from every region of China). Boutique hotels and trendy bars have sprung up in a flurry of construction, which culminated in the opening of the 'world's tallest building', Taipei 101.

Taiwan is relatively small (only a little over half of Sri Lanka's size), but its population numbers almost 23 million, making its population density second only to Bangladesh. A gateway to the massive Chinese market, it has a strong relationship with the West and is keen to increase links with Europe.

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-count...aiwan/tpod.html

I hope to visit my "grandparents" in Taiwan with my mother before they get too old. (They're not my real grand parents..they were good neighbors of my mother and they loved her so much they "adopted" her as their daughter. They moved back to Taiwan 7 years ago and have been trying to get my mom to come visit.) I've never been to Taiwan and would really love to travel there. Any travel tips for someone whose never been there before (i.e. best time to go, special interest places to see, tasty cuisine, etc.) Thanks! :)

How about tasting stinky tofu, one of TK's favourite street snacks? Would love to know what it tastes like.

I don't know what stinky tofu tastes like but I smelled it a mile away when I was in HK. I was looking for a garbage dump nearby, until my friend told me it was stinky tofu. I thought about trying it cuz of TK, but I just couldn't...

I haven't been to Taiwan, but apparently all the snacks there must be good, cuz TK likes it and eat lots of noodles at roadside stalls, just carry lots of the pink stuff. Anyways, here's an article from Lonely Planet.........

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Taiwan is a modern industrialised megalopolis clinging to the fringes of an ancient culture; a string of teeming cities at the feet of a glorious mountain range. It has traditional noodles from a 7-Eleven, aboriginal tribes in mini-skirts and a day of temple rituals followed by waterslide rides.


When To Go

As a rule you'll find the best weather in autumn. October and November tend to be mild and dry island-wide and, especially in the southwest, you may catch some residual typhoons from summer. Summer is full-blown typhoon season, consistently hot and sticky, though late-afternoon showers tend to cool temperatures (and tempers) down. Airfares also increase in summer.

If you're heading to the south of the island, December and January are an exceptionally good time to travel. You can still swim, bike, hike and it's hot enough to tan. The best thing, though, is that tourists are few, even in popular resort areas.

Try to avoid major public holidays, especially Chinese New Year (usually early February), when transport will be full, shops and restaurants closed, and hotels unusually expensive. You are best to visit during other colourful festivals such as the Lantern Festival, the birth of the goddess Matsu, Dragon Boat Festival and Teacher's Day.

Source: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/des...ons/asia/taiwan

Stinky tofu is an acquired taste....just like natto (Japanese fermented soybeans). Both are very nutritious and good for you. That is, IF you can get over the stink! :ph43r: My co-worker asked me which stinks more: stinky tofu or natto. I told him neither. Anyone whose smelled durian knows that has got to be THE WORST stench ever!! (And yes, kewpie-chan tried to eat durian but couldn't as I was gagging from the smell.) :o

Thanks for the article Sreyda! My friend (since high school) loves eating at all the street food vendors when he goes back to visit Taiwan. Although lately he doesn't since he complains of ummm Montezuma's revenge. I tease him it's due to him getting old plus he's americanized now. :P

Hmm, maybe I can convince my mom to go make a "pit stop" at Taiwan first then go to Japan in October. Can visit my adopted grandparents in Taiwan and then visit my maternal grandma in Japan. :)

Source: New York Times
URL: http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/trave...html?ref=travel
Writer: Edward Wong
Photos: Christie Johnston for The New York Times


March 2, 2008
36 Hours in Taipei, Taiwan

TAIPEI, the vibrant capital of Taiwan, distills the best of what Asian cities have to offer — great street food, crackling night life, arguably the world’s best collection of Chinese art, and hot springs and hiking trails reachable by public transport. With interest in mainland China surging, Taipei — one of the most underrated tourist destinations in Asia — offers a look at a different side of China, one that escaped the deprivations of early Communist rule and the Cultural Revolution. Here is a Chinese culture (some contend that it is uniquely Taiwanese) that practices bare-knuckled democracy and has preserved traditions thousands of years old in a way that was impossible to do on the mainland.

Friday

3 p.m.
1) ANCIENT WAYS

The National Palace Museum (221 Chih-shan Road, Section 2; 886-2-2881-2021; www.npm.gov.tw/en/home.htm) is considered by many to be the finest repository of Chinese art in the world; it houses artifacts dating back to the earliest days of Chinese civilization. The collection includes oracle bones, which have the first known written Chinese ideograms, as well as ritual bronze vessels, Ming Dynasty pottery and jade sculptured into the shapes of cabbage and fatty pork.


5 p.m.
2) TOP OF THE WORLD

But enough of ancient culture, at least for now. Immerse yourself in modern Taipei by going deep into the belly of the tallest building in the world, the 1,670-foot Taipei 101 (7 Xinyi Road, Section 5; www.taipei-101.com.tw/index_en.htm). The first five floors, with stores like Armani, Louis Vuitton and Sogo, should satisfy any shopping urge. Take a high-speed elevator to the indoor and outdoor observation decks, starting on the 89th floor, for unparalleled views of Taipei and its environs. In every direction lie city blocks and avenues winding among concrete-and-glass towers, with verdant hills rising in the distance. Wisps of cloud float past the windows. Beware of vertigo.

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Taipei 101 can be seen from a different vantage point at ground level. A woman walks past the reflection of the building in a rain puddle.


7 p.m.
3) OYSTERS IN THE SKY

Dinner is only a few floors away. Go down to the 85th floor of Taipei 101 to feast on traditional Taiwanese dishes at Shin Yeh (886-2-8101-0185). Try the deep-fried oysters and rolls stuffed with taro and shrimp. Set dinners start at about 1,600 Taiwan dollars per person ($50.40 at 31.75 Taiwan dollars to the U.S. dollar). Be sure to make reservations well in advance, ideally several weeks before arriving.


9 p.m.
4) MARTINIS WITH MOOD

Lounge bars have popped up all over Taipei. If you’re in a mood for dessert with your drink, try the bar in the consciously hip People Restaurant (191 Anhe Road, Section 2; 886-2-2735-2288). The attitude starts even before you enter: the double doors have no handles, nor do they open automatically. Figuring out how to get in is only part of the fun. Once inside, walk through the shadowy industrial rooms and take a seat at the bar or in the lounge, where cocktails are served in large glass globes. Next, saunter down the road to Rewine (137 Anhe Road, Section 1; 886-2-2325-6658), whose head bartender has won international awards for his unique cocktails.


Saturday

6 a.m.
5) CHANNELING INNER ENERGY

If you’re heading back to your hotel at dawn, or need some fresh air early in the morning, stop in at the largest public park in the city, Da An Park. It cannot compare to New York’s Central Park in size — the width and length each stretch only a few city blocks — but the smattering of tropical foliage, along with paths meandering across a level green field, endow the park with a serene air. You can watch Taipei’s dedicated tai chi practitioners going through their moves or perhaps an elderly woman doing a sword dance.


9 a.m.
6) STEAMY MORNING

After a quick breakfast at one of Taipei’s many corner bakeries, hop on the subway, called the MRT, to the New Beitou stop, about 40 minutes from downtown. The northern town of Beitou is renowned for its hot springs resorts, some modeled after those in Japan. Walk up the hill to take a soak at one of the newest of the spas, Villa 32 (32 Zhongshan Road; 886-2-6611-8888; www.villa32.com). It has all the atmosphere of a luxury spa in a uniquely Taiwanese setting, with outdoor pools of different temperatures shielded by wooden awnings and the shade of leafy trees. Rent a room for several hours or spend the morning with other bathers in the outdoor pools, separated by gender.

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The northern town of Beitou is renowned for its hot springs resorts, some modeled after those in Japan. Here visitors stroll by the public springs.


1 p.m.
7) READING TEA LEAVES

Taiwanese are discerning tea-drinkers, and going to teahouses is popular here. One local favorite is De Ye Cha Chi, near the Shandao Temple MRT station (3-1 Zhen Jiang Street; 886-2-2351-1002). Jars of tea leaves sit against a wall in the quiet dining room, and guests can brew their tea in traditional pots. Try Oriental Beauty, an oolong tea with a naturally sweet taste that was supposedly given its English-language name by the Queen of England after she had a sip. Prices vary, but a pot can cost less than 300 Taiwan dollars.


3 p.m.
8) PLACATING THE SPIRITS

To get answers to weighty life questions, or just to observe traditional Taiwanese religious practices, head to Longshan Temple, on Guangzhou Street in the venerable Wanhua neighborhood of western Taipei. Built in 1738, its main altar houses a statue of Guanyin, the goddess of compassion, but many other gods — some red-faced, others long-bearded — also have their own shrines and worshipers. In the courtyard, Taiwanese burn incense and cast red, crescent-shaped pieces of wood to divine their fortunes.

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To get answers to weighty life questions, or just to observe traditional Taiwanese religious practices, head to Longshan Temple in western Taipei. Built in 1738, its main altar houses a statue of Guanyin, the goddess of compassion. Here devotees light candles at the temple.


5 p.m.
9) CINEMA OBSCURA

If your energy is flagging about now, sit down for coffee at the Spot, the favorite art-house cinema of many a Taipei resident (18 Zhongshan North Road, Section 2; 886-2-2511-7786). The white villa that houses the screening rooms, restaurant and bar was once the official residence of the American ambassador. It is one of the most atmospheric buildings in Taipei, redolent of colonial life in the tropics, with lush grounds that shield the villa from the street.


7 p.m.
10) ALL WRAPPED UP

There’s no avoiding Din Tai Fung, a mandatory stop on Taiwan’s restaurant scene (194 Xinyi Road, Section 2; 886-2-2321-8928). This crowded, brightly lit restaurant, with chefs rolling and stuffing dumplings in the front, specializes in xiao long bao, steamed soup dumplings. These are usually associated with Shanghainese cuisine, but the dumplings here are famous for skin that is much more delicate than those of their Shanghainese counterparts. Try the ones with pork, pork and crab meat or purely vegetables. Save room for taro dumplings as a first dessert. A full meal might cost 300 Taiwan dollars a person.


9 p.m.
11) SHAVED ICE

Head around the corner to Yongkang Street, a celebrated eating avenue, for your second dessert: a mound of shaved ice topped with fresh mango, strawberry or kiwi at Ice Monster (15 Yongkang Street). Then stroll along the Street, lined with traditional noodle shops, Japanese restaurants and sweet tofu dessert parlors.


10 p.m.
12) SMALL EATS

Taipei is as modern a city as any in Asia, but traditional night markets thrive in many neighborhoods. The biggest ones resemble beachside boardwalks, with cheek-by-jowl crowds, fun-fair games, knickknack stores selling everything from chopsticks to DVD’s and, of course, every kind of Taiwanese snack food. The liveliest markets are Raohe, by Ciyou Temple in the Songshan neighborhood; Shida, between the Guting and Taipower Building MRT stations; and Shilin, at the Jiantan MRT station.

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Another night market is located in the Shida neighborhood. Here a couple selects their dinner from a street stand. The markets are especially lively on weekends, and many shops stay open past midnight.

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Food abounds in the city of Taipei and you can find it in many unexpected places. A woman grabs some roasted corn from a taxi during rush hour.


Sunday

9 a.m.
13) INTO THE CLOUDS

Your last day? Take a bus or taxi over to Yangmingshan, the gently sloping dormant volcano that sits in a national park on Taipei’s northern edge. The rangers at the main visitor’s center can give you advice on the dozens of trails. If the weather is clear, consider walking up to Mount Cising, which at 3,674 feet is the highest summit in the greater Taipei basin. The wind-swept high meadows are covered in waves of silvergrass, and the views could well inspire you to start planning your return trip to Taipei.

The Basics

In mid-February, a quick Internet search showed that the cheapest round-trip flights from New York to Taipei for travel in early March cost $800 on Northwest Airlines (two stops) and $930 on United Airlines (one stop). You’ll pay about 1,200 Taiwan dollars ($31.80 at 31.75 Taiwan dollars to the U.S. dollar) to take a taxi from the international airport in Taipei to the city center. A shuttle bus to the main railway station, in the city center and a convenient place for subway connections, costs 120 Taiwan dollars.

Les Suites Taipei is an intimate boutique hotel that has two locations in the city (12 Ching Cheng Street; 886-2-8712-7688; and 135 Da An Road, Section 1; 886-2-8773-3799; www.suitetpe.com). Late last month, the weekend on-line rate for a double at the Da An location started at about $140 a night.

The Grand Hotel, at least architecturally, lives up to its name (1 Zhongshan North Road, Section 4; 886-2-2886-8888; www.grand-hotel.org). Built in Qing Dynasty style, it has been a centerpiece of Taipei’s luxury hotel scene for years, though the location north of the city center is somewhat inconvenient. Late last month, the weekend rate for a double started at 3,990 Taiwan dollars per night.

thanks for the article!!

rain
:rolleyes:

Source: BBC News
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from...ent/7319076.stm

Keeping tradition alive in Taiwan
Nick Haslam finds a few surprises in store as he travels to a remote village in southern Taiwan hoping for a rare glimpse of a traditional marriage ceremony held by the Rukai tribe.

It sounded too good to be true, a chance to visit the rarely witnessed wedding ceremonies of the Rukai, one of the smallest indigenous tribes of Taiwan.

My informant assured me I would be among the first outsiders permitted to attend the traditional wedding, to be held in a few days time.

The Rukai, I was told, with a population of only 11,000, live in the mountainous southern region and are renowned as skilled hunters, artisans, and farmers.

An agile and wiry people, they are fiercely proud of their ancient traditions and are determined that their tribal practices remain as untouched as possible.

No journalist worth his salt could pass up such an opportunity. So I booked a ticket on the high-tech super fast train and sped 250 miles (400km) from Taiwan's capital Taipei into the tropical south.

Traditional songs

In late afternoon, after a long drive on narrow roads high into mist-covered mountains, I arrived at Wutai, the principal Rukai settlement with neat houses of thick slate slabs, standing above a steep valley overhung with bamboo.

The village square bustled with activity as women in bright traditional dress prepared for the wedding feast.

That evening, to the eerie chanting rhythm of traditional Rukai songs, an elaborate rehearsal was held as village elders put the six young couples, who would wed the next morning, through the rituals of the ceremony.

One man, with tufts of blond hair protruding from his fearsome Rukai boar hunter's cap, stood a head and shoulders above the others. A foreigner, I conjectured, who had become enamoured of the beautiful Rukai girl at his side, and decided to spend his life here in these lovely hills.

Suddenly a young man in the crowd lunged at one of the brides, but was quickly overcome and jostled from the square.

In hushed tones I was told he was a jilted suitor making a last-ditch attempt to persuade his lover to elope.

The ceremony

The next morning the village was astir early. The brides issued forth gorgeous in high head-dresses and flowing robes, wearing the ornate glass bead necklaces for which the Rukai are famous.

Grooms, equally resplendent in tight leggings of brocade and bright tunics, walked sternly down the lanes to where their brides waited in elaborate palanquins.

Elderly mothers wept and lamented as the girls, dabbing at their eyes with crimson handkerchiefs, were carried shoulder high down to the wedding ground.

Here, sheltering from the hot sun beneath large green leaves, they sat throughout the long ceremony which culminated in a parade of dowries consisting of pottery, cloth and a very large dead boar.

Tribal customs

During a lull in the activities I went forward with an interpreter to ask one of the brides, a slim girl in her late twenties, a few questions.

I asked her whether she planned to stay in the hills for the rest of her life.

Hsui-Min gently raised her leaf shade and looked a little surprised.

"I don't live here," she replied, in perfect English.

"I emigrated to Sweden from Taipei eight years ago. I live in Stockholm. That is where I met Tony."

She motioned to the tall, blond foreigner: "My new husband."

I tried to stifle my incredulity.

"You are not Rukai then?" I said.

"On no!" she replied with a tinkling laugh.

"None of us are. We saw the chance to get married Rukai style on the Taiwanese tourist board website. The others are from Taiwan's big cities. You really didn't know that?"

Later, at the wedding feast, where 200 people sat under a long awning, tribal elder Wu Piriane shed some light on my confusion.

"We are anxious to keep our tribal customs alive," he said.

"So we asked the Taiwanese tourist board to sponsor us. They agreed and we supply authentic costumes and act out the roles we remember from our own weddings many years ago."

Pushing back his beaded cap, he gave a shrewd smile.

"It brings in money to the village and visitors like you. Next year we are going to advertise on the web in English!"

I said goodbye to Hsui-Min, who introduced me to her real parents, a soberly dressed middle-aged couple, and her new husband, Tony, a hotelier from Stockholm who raised a glass of rice wine.

"This has been so much fun," he said.

"Much better than a dull town hall wedding at home in Sweden."

Weakly, I smiled and wished them well.

Ahead lay the long journey home and the big question of how I was to explain to my editor that the exclusive scoop was, in fact, a well-practised piece of theatre.

Glad you enjoyed the article. Here's another one from NYT. Unfortunately I wasn't able to capture any of the images.

Source: NYTimes
URL: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...f+taipei&st=nyt

Date: 23 March 2008

Last Days of Taipei
AS TAIWAN IS DRAWN INTO CHINA’S ORBIT, THE STORY OF ITS SURPRISING CAPITAL — AT ONCE CHAOTIC AND PEACEFUL, GRITTY AND SUBLIME — IS BEING REWRITTEN YET AGAIN.
BY DOUGLAS MCGRAY

Photographs by Michael Wolf

There is nothing particularly Taiwanese about the Astoria Café. That’s what made it special when Archibald Chien opened the place over a half century ago, on the west side of Taipei, the old downtown. The bakery sold fresh bread and homemade cakes downstairs. Upstairs, Chien served dark, bitter coffee, Italian style. Well, not really Italian. "French,” he told me. "Swiss,” he said, picking up a plate of perfect little cakes. Then he laughed. The coffee, the pastries and the cakes — actually, all Russian. "But we could not call anything Russian.” Just about everything gets political in Taipei. Even dessert.

History in Taiwan’s capital has unfolded like a foreign-affairs soap opera. In the 1500s, mainland Chinese, mostly from Fujian Province, began to move here to farm. But the newcomers clashed with the locals, dozens of tribes with their own languages and cultures. Then, in the 17th century, the Dutch moved in. Then a Chinese faction, hostile to the new Qing dynasty that ruled the mainland, threw them out. Then the Qing army conquered the Chinese in Taiwan and put the island up for sale. When they couldn’t find a buyer, they kept it until 1895, when Japan seized the land — and things got really complicated.

It’s more than history to Chien. He explained that he spoke Taiwanese as a young boy, in the 1930s. (Taiwanese is related to the local tongue of Fujian Province; just how closely related is, you guessed it, political.) But Chien had to give up Taiwanese for Japanese during elementary school — when imperial Japan was trying to scrub the island clean of native and Chinese influences. When China reclaimed Taiwan after World War II, Japanese was banned, so as a young man Chien got to work on the new national language, Mandarin Chinese.

Chien founded the Astoria in 1949 with a few Russian guys who had left the Soviet Union. That same year, Communists seized control of mainland China and General Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists fled to Taiwan. They took over Taipei and installed a thuggish government, nearly as hard-line in its anti-Maoism as the Communists in Beijing were anti-bourgeois. Mysterious men started showing up at the cafe, watching Chien’s Russian partners and tracking who came and went — especially the writers.

Business boomed for a while. Taiwan bet early on high-tech manufacturing, and by the 1970s the island was gadget maker to the world. Businessmen would come to the cafe with their portable radios and listen to the stock market report while sipping coffee. Gradually, though, the neighborhood outside, with its narrow avenues, tiled facades and crowds of street vendors, lost its importance as office towers, shopping malls, restaurants and foreign boutiques sprouted from the city’s new glass-and-steel east side. Then came the international hotels with their elegant cafes. Pretty soon, you could get a good cup of coffee and a Western-style pastry anywhere in the city.

The morning I met Chien, except for the two of us and Chien’s daughter, the Astoria Café was empty.

Taipei these days is both cosmopolitan and mellow, thanks to three decades of prosperity that have benefited largely the middle class. (I used to associate the sound of Mandarin with the bumping, every-man-for-himself chaos of China’s big cities — not anymore.) But there are echoes everywhere of the turmoil that shaped the city, and signs of an uncertain future. Which makes now a pretty interesting time to explore.

Chu T’ien-hsin and her sister are a bit like the Brontës of Taiwan. They’re big-time novelists and short-story writers. (Taipei’s dailies publish literary supplements, so highbrow short stories reach an unusually large audience.) I wanted to talk to Chu about her novella "The Old Capital,” which came out in English last year.

We met at Spot-Taipei Film House, a cinema, bookstore and cafe in a white colonial mansion on busy Zhongshan North Road. This was the United States government’s consulate in Taipei until the Carter administration normalized relations with China and left Taiwan. The old house was empty for more than two decades until a few years ago, when Hou Hsiao-hsien, the respected Taiwanese filmmaker, led an effort to transform the place. (He actually showed up at our table to say hello — Chu’s sister, T’ien-wen, writes most of his screenplays.)

Chu has a sweet, round face, inquisitive eyes and perfect posture.

"The Old Capital” was her critical hit here. It tells the story of a Taiwanese woman who returns to Taipei from abroad and struggles to find the city of her youth in a modern, alien place. As the narrator walks around the city, she retreats into her head.

Chu weighs down every memory with details — bus stops, house numbers, songs on the radio, species of flora. "There were chrysanthemums and osmanthus” if your father came from mainland China, she writes of the gardens in her character’s childhood neighborhood, "or hibiscuses and tree orchids (if your father was local Taiwanese) or wisterias and arhat pines (if your ancestors had spoken Japanese).”

"The Old Capital” is crowded with horticulture. I asked Chu why. When the Japanese came, she said, they planted flame trees, cherry trees, azaleas and eucalyptus all around Taipei. Later, the Chinese nationalists chopped many of these down and planted banyan trees and king palms. When locals chafed at the way a small gang of mainlanders ran Taipei, officials began planting native camphor trees. In less than a generation, camphor-lined streets have become the picture of modern Taipei. The stout, twisting laurels grow quickly, like so much else here.

In any boomtown, things vanish and other things take their place. But something more has happened in Taipei. "It’s just one government erasing the history of another,” Chu said. She’s no impartial observer; she feels a deep connection to mainland China, something many here reject, and she’s blunt about it. But she’s definitely right about this: Taipei’s story seems to get rewritten, and rewritten, and rewritten.

I asked Chu where I might find a place in Taipei that’s lived through a few drafts — keeping in mind that there isn’t much Old Taipei. This city of nearly three million was home to just 176,521 people in 1920 and 335,397 at the end of World War II. "In China, their grandmas’ shoes are older than our oldest buildings,” a prominent publisher and creative entrepreneur, Irmin Pao, said a couple days later when I visited him at his studio.

Chu suggested the city’s leafy southern quarter near National Taiwan University and told me to look for a cluster of old Japanese-era houses. So I caught a subway and walked toward a maze of streets behind the university. I stopped to get my bearings in front of a tall apartment building, its window boxes and wrought-iron balconies bursting with flowers. The whole street smelled of flowers. It occurred to me: If the land these houses sit on is unchanged since the Japanese era, then the trees ought to lead me to them.
I wandered down Taishun Street. Classes were out for the day. College kids filled the block, the boys in American-style jeans, loose T- shirts and polos, the girls in short skirts. Taishun Street is lined with cheap restaurants and snack counters and drink vendors selling about a million varieties of tea: candy sweet, herbal, bitter, hot, cold, black, white, green. The side streets are crooked and lovely and lined with bookstores, cafes with tiny round tables and names like L’Apres-Midi and Café Bastille, and boutiques selling Japanese street fashion. I walked into a record shop built in the gap between two buildings, so narrow that my shoulders almost brushed the walls. There are no sidewalks, and you have to dodge the occasional buzzing scooter, but it was peaceful, and for a while, I forgot my mission.

Trees; right.

I sipped at a cold tea (opaque brown, sweet and tart, with a spoonful of brown jelly in it) and peered down each side street. Then I spotted a different kind of green, and headed for it. Soon I was surrounded by thick trees, and birds, so many they drowned out the sounds of the city. This was it. I could barely see the houses behind their high brick walls and rain-forest-thick yards, but the rooflines were unmistakable — dark, curved tiles and shallow angles, just like in Kyoto.

A few days later, I returned to the neighborhood to meet another novelist, Luo Yichin, and look for ghosts of Chiang’s nationalist China. Luo lives nearby, and hangs out at Café Bastille. He is stocky, with thinning hair and a big, boisterous laugh. His stories are difficult, critics told me, but popular. We grabbed some lunch — plates of clams, chewy greens and a Shanghai-style Chinese soup that Luo first translated hesitantly as "once fresh” but revised, less convincingly, to "very delicious”: thick chunks of ham, fatty pork and crisp potatoes in a briny white broth. Then we headed west, to something called a red envelope club.

It was dark inside. A thin cloud of smoke settled on the ceiling around a disco ball. We found seats by the stage. All around us, old men sipped tea from paper cups; a bunch of them had nodded off. Onstage, a woman, not quite middle-aged but not young either, slinked around in a red sequined dress with a plunging neckline, singing an old Mandarin torch song. When she finished, the house lights came up, and a few old men shuffled to the stage with red envelopes, small bills stuffed inside.

Most of the men around us were in the army, Luo explained. Chiang showed up in a small city with 600,000 Chinese soldiers, most of them single or permanently separated from their families; it made for a skewed dating scene. "Most of the songs are about homesickness,” Luo said.

There used to be lots of red envelope clubs in the city; now there are just a handful. The generation that remembers these melodies, and the mainland, and the war, and the fight for Beijing, and the flight to Taipei — it’s dying. A song ended; the lights came up again. A few more men shuffled to the stage.

Taipei’s shiny east side is home to the world’s tallest building, Taipei 101. But Chiang Kai-shek’s memorial casts a longer shadow. It sits in the middle of a sprawling walled garden, towering over a severe plaza that spans several city blocks.

Like the camphor trees, a lot of the postcard attractions in Taipei hold political meaning that’s lost on most visitors. Take Lungshan Temple. Built in 1738, it’s one of the largest temples in Taiwan — an explosion of bright color and intricate sculpture. It’s also where, in 1986, a crowd of activists first publicly called for an end to martial law. Or there’s the National Palace Museum, set back in the steep, green mountains that rise at the northern edge of the city. When it fled the mainland, Chiang’s army brought along the world’s most significant collection of Chinese art, which fills the museum’s galleries. "I was always fascinated by that decision,” Irmin Pao, the publisher, told me. "They’ve lost the battle, they’re trying to get out of China, bullets are flying, and someone has to pack all those vases. It’s very Indiana Jones,” he joked. "For that reason alone, China will never let us be independent.”

Here at Chiang’s memorial, students from all over Taiwan gathered in 1990 to demand democratic reforms, including popular elections for the presidency. They called themselves the Wild Lily movement. Early last year, the central government took Chiang Kai-shek’s name off his memorial. Now it’s the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. The new sign, marked with a lily, went up just before I got to Taipei. Politicians were still bickering about it.

The memorial’s collection is a cult-of-personality shrine, assembled in the days when Chiang’s party, the Kuomintang, ran the government. It has displays like the Late President Chiang’s Everlasting Contributions to the Entire World. Cases full of medals. Chiang’s black, rapper-fabulous Cadillacs. And his favorite slippers. ("He loved to wear these shoes when he was pacing during the war against Japan.”)

A new exhibit called "Bye-bye, Chiang Kai-shek!” told a different story. There was a tally of suspected political criminals from 1949 to 1952, more than 240,000 names. A list of more than 1,500 prisoners sent to re-education camps. Photos of men and women who disappeared during Taiwan’s so-called White Terror. Death sentences, written in Chiang’s signature red pen.

It’s hard to believe a national museum would put two competing versions of history on display, side by side, and make no attempt to reconcile them. But it’s fitting. Consider Taiwan’s parliament, riven by two warring parties and bitterly divided over Chiang’s legacy and Taiwan’s ties to the mainland. A couple years ago, one legislator grabbed a rival’s proposal to allow direct flights between Taiwan and China, shoved it in her mouth and chewed it up, setting off a brawl. An actual brawl. Legislators have thrown food at one another and drawn blood (actual blood) on the parliament floor.

My translator, Julia, and I walked out and descended the steps to the plaza. For all the conflict inside, it was a peaceful spot. Couples walked with young children. Teenagers improvised a game of badminton. An imposing wall quieted the noise of rush hour traffic. There had been talk in recent weeks of tearing it down and planting trees in its place.
It was starting to get dark. "Hungry?” Julia asked. We hailed a taxi and headed for one of Taipei’s famous night markets, where vendors pack a maze of streets and alleys when the sun sets. Wandering, we dug into a pile of floury, handmade noodles, followed by pig’s-blood cake covered with crushed peanuts and cilantro; fried buns stuffed with bitter greens; pungent soup with slivers of fresh ginger and whole pigs’ feet; big hunks of melon, just in season; and heaping bowls of sweet, slippery douhua — chilled tofu pudding with azuki beans, mung beans and boiled peanuts.

I was struck by how many people in Taipei wondered aloud about the future — whether the city would continue to change for the better. It boiled down to this: Ten years ago, iPods would have been made in Taiwan. Today they’re made in China.

"Everything is drawn to China,” Pao said. "It’s like this big magnet.” But it’s hard to tell what that will mean for Taiwan in the long run. "I think people notice Taipei because of China,” he continued. "A few years ago, you would never have taken this trip.”

There was a new teen movie out, called "Exit No. 6,” about my next stop: Exit 6 at Ximen Station, in Ximending on the city’s west side. It was Friday night, and I was meeting Michelle Yeh, a 31-year-old film producer whose debut, a gay dating comedy called "Formula 17,” hit No. 1 at the box office. Yeh is tall, with a heart-shaped face and black hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She wore a baggy black T-shirt, black jeans and white Adidas Superstars.

We ambled down the middle of the street. Pushcart vendors sold corn on the cob, sweet pork sausages and Taipei’s famous "stinky tofu.” Somewhere high above us, the stars had come out, but at street level, it was Vegas bright. It seemed like every third or fourth building was a movie theater; the rest were restaurants, arcades and cheap shops (like the concisely named Real Hip Hop Doobiest 911 Street Style International).

Yeh’s a west side person, she told me; east side people, "they’re more posh.” I’m with her. The east side is nice. It’s the place to go if you want to buy something expensive from Tokyo or get a frappuccino. But it’s a bit anonymous. Nothing like Dihua Street, on the west side, with its eccentric stone buildings and shops filled with curiosities (like an opulent old chandelier lit by fluorescent tubes). Not to mention the astoundingly good beef noodle soup place on Taoyuan Street, known simply as Tao Yuan Jie Niu Rou Mian, or the Beef Noodles on Taoyuan Street.

Like so many creative types in Taipei, Yeh spends a lot of time in China these days. When we met, she was in the middle of shooting a movie on the mainland. China’s 1.3 billion people are an enticing audience, and working on both sides of the Taiwan Strait might be a way to survive Hollywood’s invasion. (In Ximending, American films must have outnumbered Taiwanese 10 to 1, maybe 20 to 1.)

But she worried that "whatever cultural influence Taipei had has been usurped by cities in China.” A few days earlier, the artist Chen Chieh-jen told me that a European curator had solicited his work for a show, thinking he was from China; when the curator learned that Chen lives in Taiwan, he took back the invitation. Many Taiwanese artists and curators have moved to Shanghai, where foreign cash has flooded local galleries.

Working in China, however, can mean cultural compromises. "A lot of subject matter can’t be filmed,” Yeh explained. I asked what kind. "Um — Falun Gong. Or ghosts — in the end, there has to be a scientific explanation, or the character has to have been imagining it all. Also, nothing too political. Or homosexual.”

Yeh said Hong Kong movies have changed, become more Chinese. Whole themes have disappeared. And it’s not just movies. "Hong Kong lost its culture,” she insisted. She could imagine the same thing happening to Taipei. "What makes Taiwan special is going to become more and more marginalized. It is going to be less and less important for young people.”

We ducked down an alley, barely wide enough for two people to pass. The shop awnings almost touched overhead, and strings of tiny lights and colored balls dangled between them, a kind of canopy. It felt a bit like walking through the forest, except the wildlife was getting its nails done and the buzz of tattoo guns stood in for crickets and bird song.
"Are you hungry?” Yeh asked. I answered, "Here? Always.” She led me to a tiny restaurant with dim, fluorescent lighting and white walls. It was called King Garden Pork Chops. (I like a restaurant name that tells you what’s good. Like Swan Meat City, across town.) A cook sat at an empty table, chopping pork off the bone with a heavy cleaver. He took our order.

"I love this place!” Yeh said, clapping her hands. "My parents went here when they were dating.” The food came almost instantly: bowls of thin yellow broth with clear noodles, cabbage and crispy fried pork. It was cheap, greasy and delicious. Two teenagers next to us ordered steaming pork and rice; they left their headphones on and ate in silence.
The pork chops will probably still be here in 10 years. But the rest of the city, the economy, the culture, it’s hard to know what will become of it. Democratic Progressive Party leaders have talked up continued independence from China in recent years, but they lost big at the polls this winter to the more conciliatory Kuomintang. "Everything here is political to some extent,” Yeh said. "When the government changes, the whole country changes. We’re highly influenced by who’s in charge.”

On my last day in the city, I visited Chow Yu, a trim, quiet 60-something man who runs Wistaria Tea House near Da’an Forest Park. The Taiwan-born director Ang Lee shot part of "Eat Drink Man Woman” here. It’s a creaky, Japanese-style building nearly a century old, with a garden that blends elements of traditional Japan (bamboo, koi pond) and Taiwan (soft ferns). The busy six-lane street just beyond the garden wall used to be a river, Chow said. As a boy, he’d cross it every day to go to school, on a narrow wooden bridge. The air would be full of dragonflies.

Wistaria Tea House was under renovation, so we sat at Chow’s smaller Vine House on a quiet, crooked alley nearby. It’s pretty and homey, with dark slate floors, mismatched tables and austere paintings and drawings by Chow’s artist friends. We took a seat near a window, and Chow set his sliver-thin Japanese cellphone between us. I wondered if it was made in Taiwan.

His father, he said, had been a government official, then a professor who translated Friedrich Hayek, the free-market economist and philosopher, into Chinese. (Hayek’s books were banned on the mainland.) During his dad’s university days, the house became an important salon. When Chow inherited the place, he turned it into a teahouse — not out of any love for tea, but because he kept hosting plays and concerts and readings and realized he ought to sell something. "All night, the door was open,” Chow recalled. "We’d drink and talk. It was very romantic, very bohemian.”

Lately, the tea has started to take on greater meaning for him. Old tea, especially. He’s been collecting it and serving it on special occasions. Some of his teas are almost 100 years old. He went to the basement and came back with a small canister of pu-erh tea, grown in Taiwan and picked in the early 1950s. He got a tiny clay teapot smaller than a tennis ball and a pair of shallow black cups. "We drink old tea to recall our old times,” he said, adding hot water to a pinch of long, dark leaves, "and to connect with history and memory. There is a certain bitterness that recalls time past. You can renew yourself, and look at history with a clearer mind.”

Old tea is hard to store. It takes on moisture, soaks up flavors of other teas stored nearby. "The first few brews show the imperfections most prominently,” Chow said as I took a sip. It smelled earthy and tasted woody, a little bitter. A sip almost drained the cup. "Toward the end, only the essence remains,” he said, refilling my cup again, and again. Each time, it tasted grassier, softer.

"You can taste the time,” he said. "It’s the same for people. If they can overcome the darker parts of their history, they can move on to a better place.”

Source: Travel & Leisure Australia
URL: www.travelandleisure.com.au/taipei/

Taipei days
By Anthony Dennis

Anthony Dennis lands in the electronically charged Taiwanese capital wondering why he's there – and leaves wondering how soon he can return.

I've just arrived at Taipei's Taoyuan International Airport, having been confronted, from the window of my taxiing jet, by a massive red, blue and white Taiwanese flag draped across the terminal facade. It declares unambiguously that this is the Republic of China, not the People's Republic of China. As I walk from the aerobridge into the terminal proper, instead of the usual ads for Zegna ties and Dior handbags, I am assailed, curiously, with signs for all manner of widgets: cable-ties, semi-conductors and diodes. Electronics, after all, are a source of national pride, having provided the foundation for a Taiwanese standard of living that still far surpasses that of mainland China.

But, at this early point, it's hard to resist the sneaking question, "What am I doing here?" It's a valid proposition when you consider that Taiwan is an island that's lived under threat of an attack from its neighbour, the most populous nation on earth, just 180 kilometres across the Taiwan Strait. And yet, cable-ties, semi-conductors and diodes aside, there's that certain frisson of excitement attached to visiting a new place, especially one that's been so comprehensively ostracised politically, economically and diplomatically for decades as a result of its on-going rift with the mainland. Also

Taipei rarely, nay never, makes it on to the itineraries of "Grand Tours of Asia" thus there's that faintly perverse satisfaction a traveller experiences at having arrived at a place which is, in effect, on the back roads of the Asian tourist trail.

From the back seat of the airport taxi I glimpse the almost sinister-looking, 508-metre high Taipei 101, the capital's principal landmark, recently eclipsed as the world's tallest building. Poor Taiwan. It just can't win. From my moving vantage point the tower seems to reach the ragged outline of most of the surrounding mountains, its bright white aircraft-warning lights blinking sharply in a distant chalky haze. But Taipei 101 will have to wait. On this, my first night in Taipei, I've chosen to head, not for the city centre, but for those hills that surround the capital and a much-vaunted hotel called Villa 32.

I've come to Taipei not to analyse Taiwan's political complexities, as difficult as they are to ignore, but with the intention of recording the emergence of yet another great Asian capital, a city that's said to be finally ready to assume a place in the pantheon of great Eastern hubs such as Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai. No less a style arbiter than Tyler Brûlé, Wallpaper* magazine founder, believes that Taipei's time has come, having declared the city Asia's most underrated capital. Yet could a place that has had missiles trained on it for a decade be as worthwhile a place to visit as its more customary Asian counterparts?

Taiwan and China split in 1949 after Mao Zedong's rise to power and the decampment to the island of the vanquished Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. Taipei's National Palace Museum houses one of the world's best collections of Chinese artefacts, largely courtesy of the loot Chiang and his cronies brought with them across the Taiwan Strait. His arrival triggered decades of the martial law he imposed, ending only in the years after his death in 1975, when Taiwan established itself as a legitimate democracy. Since then the People's Republic has insisted that Taiwan is part of China, vowing to invade should the island ever formally declare independence. With the US as its closest, most protective ally, any such act would likely trigger an ugly global crisis. Taiwan, a country with a population similar in size to that of Australia, has therefore been dogged for decades by a simple question that has led to a political and diplomatic impasse: is Taiwan an independent nation or irrevocably part of China?

Earlier this year, however, following the defeat of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party by the more pragmatic, pro-China Kuomintang Party, tensions between Taipei and Beijing eased dramatically. An agreement was forged to reinstate regular direct flights between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. Indeed, China's President Hu Jintao commented recently, "Many countries have managed to settle differences and contradictions and engage in co-operation with other countries successfully. We Chinese compatriots on both sides of the strait belong to the same family, so we have more reason to do so and do it better." What with airlines cutting flights to Taiwan and diverting them to the mainland, the island's tourism industry, which draws just 3 million visitors annually, could benefit greatly, though the Taiwanese worry about the influence of the giant next door. So perhaps the hitherto obscure Taipei may now suddenly qualify as one of those see-it-before-it's-too-late destinations.

The Beitou area of Taipei, where I'm headed, was popular among the Japanese who were harsh, though industrious, occupiers of Taiwan for 50 years, until the end of World War II. They opened many onsens – spa hotels – on the hillsides overlooking the city, exploiting the island's abundant hot springs, which reminded them of their homeland. In 1935 there were 35 hotels in Beitou, most of them Japanese-run and barred, except for servants, to local Taiwanese. One of the oldest of these establishments, Whispering Pines Inn, still operates, and is reputedly a haunt of Hollywood stars such as Richard Gere. It's a contrast to the nearby, ultra-contemporary Villa 32 with its five luxurious suites, each with its own hot springs bath. Just half-an-hour by taxi from the city centre, the hotel is set on the edge of Beitou's geothermal valley where hot springs are festooned with signs warning "Don't enter to soaks foot".

But just as I decide that Villa 32 is the perfect place to forget about thoughts of war in a city that has lived with such a prospect on a daily basis, I learn that just up the hill is the Taiwan Folk Arts Museum, built inside the former Jiashan Hotel. During World War II this gorgeous 1921 two-storey building acted as a "country-club" for the Japanese military and accommodated kamikaze pilots on the night before their suicide mission, when they enjoyed one last ritual bath as well as the company of lovers or Taiwanese call-girls, or both. The building, damaged by termites, sulphur erosion and humidity, has been recently restored and hosts, among other attractions, an interesting collection of Taiwanese "folk cultural objects", including relics from the island's indigenous inhabitants. But perhaps the most interesting exhibit is a preserved communal, Japanese-style bath (sans water). As you stand there it doesn't require much imagination to conjure images of kamikaze pilots soaking in steaming water, contemplating their fate and devotion to their Emperor.

The Japanese may have exploited Taiwan's resources, but it's acknowledged that they left the island with an enviable infrastructure. In the years following the war, this provided the basis for a solid economy, largely achieved by Taiwanese foresight in recognising the immense export potential for electronics. The legacy of the Japanese occupation is especially noticeable in Taipei; its wide, tree-lined boulevards are reminiscent of many cities there. And it was the Japanese who much more recently provided the technology for Taiwan's new inter-city bullet train, which cuts like, well, a samurai blade through the city's heart.

Back at Beitou, I'm impressed as much by Villa 32 as I am that hot springs exist so close to a large city. Since Villa 32 opened a few years ago, the hotel has attracted considerable international attention while also becoming a popular retreat for wealthy Taiwanese and expatriates. It remains the priciest place to stay in Taipei outside of a hotel presidential suite, having first opened as an exclusive club. Owner Chui Ming-hung, one of Taiwan's most successful stockmarket investors, wearied of visiting an empty, under-used property and decided to transform it into a hotel. There is an elegant hot springs complex for public use, while hotel guests have a choice of either European or Japanese-style suites, some of which feature lavish, gold-veined black marble baths that draw water from the adjacent geothermal valley. Later, as I slip into the healing waters of Beitou, ensconced in the privacy of the huge bathroom (one of two, no less) in my split-level suite, I can already feel the nagging question "What am I doing here?" fading like a worn-out diode.

Taking tea on the terrace leading from Villa 32's excellent Italian restaurant, I survey the hotel's clean, confident, architectural lines, replete with banks of teak screens, imposing walls of Australian sandstone and chic private gazebos. At the next table is a group of wealthy-looking, immaculately dressed Taipei women seated beside the garden, shaded by camphor and maple trees. I'm reminded of the 1994 Taiwanese film, Eat Drink Man Woman, about a Taipei chef who lives with his three grown daughters. The movie was directed by acclaimed Taiwanese director, Ang Lee, and introduced the world to a sophisticated Taipei. There's a scene where one of the characters talks about flying down to Sydney with the insouciance of a New York sophisticate announcing they're just popping across to London.

I'm in Taipei in the days leading up to New Year's Eve and there's already a palpable buzz. After a night at Villa 32, I head down the mountain to the city centre and the relatively less expensive Grand Hyatt, conveniently adjacent to Taipei 101. Nearby a large stage in front of Taipei City Hall Square is being erected. Everyone seems excited about the special fireworks display planned for the capital, with the tower as the spectacular focus. This year the celebrations will serve as an official farewell to Taipei 101's status as the world's tallest building, displaced by the Burj, an even more ridiculously sky-scraping tower in Dubai. The Taiwanese attach a certain sentimentality to Taipei 101. It has served to shape a much-needed image of the city in the eyes of the world, helping to project a sense of modern Taipei into the popular, global consciousness in a way that cable-ties, semi-conductors and diodes couldn't quite manage. While the tower is not especially appealing architecturally, resembbling, as it does, stack after stack of antique Chinese bedside tables, it remains a vital symbol of Taiwanese enterprise; a grandiose glass and steel "up-yours" to the mainland Chinese. Indeed, a whole new city has been built around Taipei 101, complete with a network of elevated covered walkways directing pedestrians to some of Asia's finest, frenzy-free shopping. It's around here that you'll find Eslite, Taipei's much-loved, 24-hour book store, complete with an impressively large, food court with nary a hint of English-language signage.

But don't let language barriers be an impediment to enjoying what is indisputably one of the best food cities in Asia. This, after all, is a city famed for its dumplings, a minor delicacy derived from the mainland and refined here. And while there is no shortage of places to eat them, Din Tai Fung is an institution (which has just opened an outlet in Sydney) where locals and visitors alike queue out the door for a table. Just as you enter there is a glass-fronted kitchen that houses the dumpling assembly line, overseen by a scrum of chefs dressed in white and wearing surgical-type masks. Elsewhere, waitresses in short black skirts deliver plates of delicate dumplings, which, when broken, ooze delicious soupy contents. Just around the corner is one of the bustling roads that run through the Yongkang Park district. This area, best enjoyed after dark, is full of Japanese-style houses and lively streets lined with faddish frozen-ice shops with names like "Ice Monster", sweet cafes, inviting antiques stores and oodles of noodle and dumpling joints.

One evening, acting on a recommendation from a Taiwanese at the Grand Hyatt, I'm drawn back up into the hills to visit an extraordinary restaurant called Shi Yang Shan Fang, situated within Yangmingshan National Park. My taxi climbs so high and for so long, up winding roads above the twinkling city below, that I wonder if I'll ever get there for breakfast, let alone dinner. But, amid mist at the mountain's summit, I'm greeted at a set of gates by a welcoming, umbrella-wielding figure who escorts me down a slippery, largely unseen path to one of three separate single-storey pavilions, softly illuminated by a series of large, rice-paper ceiling lamps and packed with diners. An impressive and appealing sight, it resembles more a religious mountain retreat than a world-class restaurant, which is clearly the intention of the owner, an erstwhile architect.

Inside, the flooring consists of Japanese-style tatami, and thus I'm required to remove my shoes before entering. The restaurant is renowned for its use of fine local ingredients interpreted in a modern style with Japanese touches, and dishes are presented on tableware from Yingge, a notable Taiwanese pottery town. No alcohol is served and the prix-fixe menu has an emphasis on health and nutrition. The dishes include Japanese-style sashimi and a large bowl of long-boiled chicken soup with lotus root and ginseng. No wonder its Chinese name translates as "eating room on mountain to cultivate oneself".

The culinary skill displayed here is reminiscent of Tetsuya's, the world-class Japanese-French restaurant in Sydney. As a consequence I'm expecting a hefty bill. But it's about $35, making this one of the most inexpensive, outstanding dining experiences of my life. And the night does not end there. I am invited by the waitress to participate in a Fujian Gongfu Cha ceremony. In another atmospheric building, I squat on tatami in front of a table where white bowls are lined up before me. For the next hour, in a kind of liquid meditation class, I down bowl after bowl of 17-year-old Chinese tea, which is considered akin to a liqueur, before heading back down to the city.

Once many of the world's top fashion labels were manufactured in Taiwan, but slowly the business went to China, leaving behind many skilled workers. Now, with cross-Strait relations improving, a wider range of Taiwanese businesses are moving their operations to China, as Jamei Chen, one of Taiwan's leading fashion designers, explains. We meet at her studio around the corner from her shop on trendy Da-An Road. There she speaks of her "love of this island, despite the political difficulties", and the need for the authorities to encourage Taiwan art and design, particularly in the light of the international success of Chinese contemporary art and the eventual influx of mainland visitors.

"Taipei is isolated because of the political status quo between [Taiwan and China]," says Chen, when I contact her some months after my visit following the cross-Strait rapprochement. "Unlike Hong Kong or Shanghai, which are part of the mainland, Taipei is an orphan – it's a city that has had to fight for its survival. But the improvement in the cross-Strait relationship not only means that we as a Taiwanese people will be able to feel more secure, at least psychologically, it will also provide us with the chance to finally interact with people from the mainland."

Many of those visiting mainlanders are likely to encounter, as I did, a whole new generation of cosmopolitan Eat Drink Man Woman-style Taiwanese who have emerged, opening stylish bars, restaurants and accommodation in the increasingly fashionable, inner-city neighbourhoods of East Taipei. Top fashion designers, like Chen, have opened their own swish cafes-cum-shops; Chen's Dialogue is set just across the road from the beautiful colonial-style former residence of the US ambassador, now converted into the Spot Taipei film house, in the elegant old part of Taipei. Another leading designer, Isabelle Wen, is responsible for Sofa (a hip, late-night bar with – yes – more than two dozen different sofas) and the eclectically furnished Khaki.

For my last few nights I check into the quirky VVG (Very Very Good) BB + B, as fine, and engaging, an example of the emerging cool Taipei as you'll find. Above a street where she operates a buzzy cafe, VVG Bistro, and VVG Table restaurant, proprietor Grace Wang has decorated two otherwise ordinary apartments with eclectic bits and pieces she's collected from her travels to places such as Shanghai and Thailand. As it eventuates, I'm the first Westerner to sample the just-opened apartment, Fancia. I'm escorted to my apartment, a wall-to-wall burst of creativity, by Wang's business partner, Evonne Hsiao. "Taipei's ready to grow up," Hsiao says. "Taipei people want their city to be more than just a business centre. There's been a transformation in the last five years with the emergence of a lot of new influences. In Hong Kong everyone is anxious and stressed. Taipei is a fast city but there's still a friendliness here. People still have time to stop and talk."

Indeed, after a week in Taipei, that sneaking question "What am I doing here?" has been replaced by "When can I come back?"

Guide to Taipei

GETTING THERE

Taiwan's national airline, China Airlines, has direct flights from Sydney and Brisbane to Taipei. www.china-airlines.com; Cathay Pacific flies from Australia and New Zealand to Hong Kong with connections to Taipei. www.cathaypacific.com. Qantas code shares with Eva Airlines to Taipei; www.qantas.com


WHEN TO GO

Taipei has hot summers and mild winters. The best time to visit is October and November.


WHERE TO STAY

Villa 32
Doubles from $560.
32 Zhongshan Road, Beitou;
+886 2 6611 8888;
www.villa32.com

Grand Hyatt Taipei
Doubles from $300.
2 Song Shou Road, Taipei;
+886 2 2720 1234;
www.taipei.grand.hyatt.com

Les Suites
Doubles from $260.
135 Da-an Road, Section 1, Taipei; +886 2 8773 3799; www.suitepe.com

VVG BB + B
Doubles from $234. Second floor, 18-20, Alley 40, Lane 181, Section 4, Chung-Hsiao East Rd; +886 2 2775 4386; www.VVGBBB.com.tw


WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK

Shi Yang Shan Fang
Dinner for two $35. 160, Lane 101, Qingshan Road, Shihlin District;
+886 2 2862 0078.

Din Tai Fung
Dinner for two $40. 194 XinYi Rd, Section 2, Taipei; +886 2 2321 8928;
www.dintaifung.com.tw

VVG Table
Dinner for two $211.
14, Alley 40, Lane 181,
Section 4, Chung-hsaio
East Road; +886 2 2775 5120.

VVG Bistro
Dinner for two $169.
20, Alley 40, Lane 181,
Section 4, Chung-hsaio
East Rd; +886 2 8773 3533.

Sofa
56, Lane 161, DunHua S. Road, Section 1; +886 2 8773 0906; www.isabelle-wen.com

Khaki Cafe Bistro and Bar
Departure Building, 15,
RenAi Rd, Section 4;
+886 2 2779 1152;
www.isabelle-wen.com

Seems like Taipei is considered the "hot" Asian destination at the moment.

Source: New York Times

September 21, 2008
Asia/Pacific Issue
Feasting at the Table of Taipei by MATT GROSS
Photos by Christie Johnston for The New York Times


LIKE any great restaurant, Old Wang Beef Noodle Soup King has no sign. It sits on Taoyuan Street, not far from Taiwan’s presidential palace, and there are pretty much only two ways you’d know to go there instead of the similar noodle shops that surround it. Either you spy the line, which is long but fast-moving, and figure all those families, businessmen on lunch break and fashionable college kids are onto something. Or you catch the scent of broth — soy, anise, chilies, beef — which draws you inexorably into the dining room, where your intrepidity is rewarded with chewy wheat noodles, a rich and clean-tasting soup and hunks of meat that shred juicily at the slightest pressure from your tongue. There may be no better beef noodle soup in all of Taipei.

Hidden in plain sight, popular but light-years from trendy, surprisingly accessible and instantly enjoyable, Old Wang is also a perfect metaphor for Taipei, the Chinese capital you haven’t heard much about in 2008. This was, after all, Beijing’s moment in the sun, with the Olympic Games giving it the opportunity to strut its stuff on the world stage.

And Taiwan? The little democratic island of 23 million just can’t compete with the Communist state of 1.3 billion that claims it as a renegade province and would react unfavorably if Taiwan’s leaders were officially to declare independence. Unless you’re in the semiconductor business, chances are you’ll choose the Forbidden City over, say, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, especially when Taiwan’s tourist bureau promotes it with slogans like “Taiwan: Touch Your Heart.”

Which is a pity if you like to eat, for food is one arena where Taipei — the world’s most underrated capital city, according to Monocle magazine — blows Beijing away. Its food incorporates more influences, spans street food to haute cuisine with greater aplomb and is out and out more delicious than that of its mainland counterpart. Not to mention that its people are perhaps the most comestible-crazed Asians outside of Singapore — no excursion is complete without, say, a bag of stewed duck tongues at journey’s end.

(Posted Image)
Candied haw fruits from a night market.


My high opinion of Taiwanese food may be somewhat biased: My wife, Jean, grew up in Taipei, and her family still lives there, on the edge of Ximending, an exuberant neon-lighted night life-and-shopping zone that’s like a friendlier version of Shibuya in Tokyo. Whenever we visit — as we did for a week last November — her family and friends ensure that we fill our bellies with the best food around.

Defining that superlative cuisine, however, is tricky, for Taiwan is a melting pot. Virtually every cooking style of the mainland is represented, thanks to the waves of immigration that began in 1949, when Mao Zedong’s Communists defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists.

For Shanghai soup dumplings, there’s the world-famous Din Tai Fung, and if you love the fiery food of Sichuan province, check out the retro Chuan Guo for hot pot (a bubbling communal soup in which you cook meats and vegetables) and the new-school Kiki for dishes like fly’s head (ground pork stir-fried with chilies and chives).

Japanese ingredients and techniques have a long history there as well, since Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to the end of World War II. Sushi is as common in night markets as oven-roasted buns stuffed with sweet, peppery pork; teppanyaki has advanced far beyond Benihana; and humble tempura is a fixture, transmogrified into batter-free tian bu la.

Side by side with these influences lives Taiwanese cuisine. In part, it resembles the food of China’s Fujian Province, from which much of Taiwan’s population immigrated beginning in the 17th century: heavy on pork, seafood and vegetables, with an emphasis on textures that may seem odd to Westerners. Soups tend to be extra thick, and Q, a springier analogue to the concept of al dente, is essential, whether you’re chewing noodles, fish balls or the tapioca in your sweet milky tea.

To find these flavors and textures in one place, follow the crowds to Ay-Chung Flour-Rice Noodle, a Ximending staple since 1975, where dozens of people stand, slurping from bright-green plastic bowls. They’re all eating Ay-Chung’s signature dish — actually, its only dish — mian xian: thin rice noodles in a vinegary, glutinous broth, studded with needlelike bamboo shoots and Q-y curls of pig intestine, and topped with sprigs of cilantro, chopped garlic and chili sauce.

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Ay-Chung Flour-Rice Noodle's signature dish, mian xian


Strange as the combination may sound, it works. The intestine resists your bite for a split second, then pops as you cleave it. The garlic, chili and vinegar give it a punch that clears the sinuses. The cilantro cuts through everything else with its soapy, floral aroma. And the noodles and warm soup provide a heartening backdrop for everything else. To the Taiwanese, this is comfort food, a regular indulgence (Ay-Chung’s 27-year-old manager told me he’d been eating there since middle school) that can, if you’re denied it too long, easily turn into a craving.

AY-CHUNG’S noodles belong to a category of Taiwanese food called xiao chi, or small eats. Often, this means snacks sold on the street and in night markets, like a spicy-sweet grilled sausage or something odder, perhaps stinky tofu, the flash-fried cubes of fermented bean curd that smell like an open sewer. Of course, as anyone who’s fallen in love with odoriferous French cheeses knows, aroma and flavor may be connected, but they are not interchangeable. Stinky tofu has an uncannily earthy flavor that is, at its best, sweet as well, and matches perfectly with chili sauce and cool, crunchy pickled cabbage.

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Stinky tofu and sticky rice in bamboo leaves


Xiao chi, however, encompasses more than just street snacks, according to Shu Kuo-chih, whose book “Notes on Taipei Xiao Chi,” based on his column in Business Weekly, was published in 2007. To Mr. Shu, a tall, thin man who claims not to have cooked a meal since returning from the United States in 1990, xiao chi is simply the Taiwanese way of eating, a culture of small plates — to use an apt New York restaurant term.

“It can be lunch, snack and dinner food,” Mr. Shu told me over a bottle of wine one night at Mei’s Tea Bar, a hangout for Taipei’s culturati. “You can sit as long as you want and just take one bowl of noodles.”

When we’d finished our bottle, Mr. Shu took me, Jean and his publishing friends Max Lin and Rebecca Huang for some late-night/early-morning xiao chi at Yonghe Soy Milk King, a fluorescent-lighted breakfast parlor on a stretch of Fuxing South Road. In the stainless-steel kitchen, vats of warm soy milk bubbled, cooks scrambled eggs and wrapped them in scallion pancakes, and sticks of you tiao, a kind of Chinese cruller, emerged glistening from an oil-filled wok.

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Yonghe Soy Milk King


We ordered all of the above, plus rice balls — small cylinders of glutinous rice wrapped around shredded pork and pickled daikon — which are the Taiwanese version of the Japanese onigiri. They had never been my favorite (too dry, chewy rather than Q-y) but these were a revelation, juicy, a little sweet and bursting with honest flavors of rice and pork.

“It’s one of the best rice balls in the whole of Taiwan,” Mr. Shu said. No one argued; our mouths were full.

Not every xiao chi meal is lowbrow. In fact, the once-rustic Taiwanese fare has gone progressively upscale in recent years. AoBa, the reincarnation of the venerable Chin Yeh, was the sexiest restaurant I visited in Taipei: wood floors and tables that glowed under soft lighting, a semi-private corner table shrouded in red banquettes, glossy black-and-white photos that evoked not glamour but intimacy. AoBa managed to give chic a heart.

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Naturally, the kitchen took a similar approach, gussying up traditional Taiwanese dishes with enough quality ingredients and precision preparation that they became wholly new without losing their essential flavors. A seafood salad not only came loaded with squid and shrimp but was, to my surprise, an actual salad, with piles of fresh lettuce. (In the minds of most Chinese cooks, only barbarians eat raw vegetables.) A stir-fry of celery and lily bulbs was pure simplicity, preserving the individual textures and flavors of the vegetables, as did the radish fried rice, a shockingly straightforward approach that managed to redeem the entire shopworn concept of fried rice.

Nor was service neglected. Waitresses and busboys came and went nearly invisibly, refilling teapots and clearing dishes with studied efficiency. Jean and I and our friends, Annie Lu and Thomas Willemsen, who both work in Taiwan’s pharmaceuticals industry, left feeling almost humbled by the experience. Who knew food so simple could be so sublime?

The next day, Jean and I joined her mother, two aunts and an uncle for lunch at the Eat Rice Center, a restaurant on bustling Yongkang Street whose simple name belies its sophistication. First, the dining room: subtle lighting, pebbled and tiled walls warmed by wooden plaques with elegant calligraphy and a mural depicting an outdoor kitchen in the countryside.

Then, of course, there is the food, a mix of Taiwanese standards and dishes from Yilan County, a mountainous region on the northeast coast. Historically, Yilan was isolated, two factors that shaped its cuisine. Its dishes tend to be minimalist in an almost Zen way: pig’s liver cut into neat triangles and pan-fried; or gao tsa, literally leftover cakes, made of egg whites and pork or chicken broth whipped into airy cylinders and deep-fried — pure peasant genius.

“It’s very hot on the inside but cool on the outside, and that represents Yilan peoples’ character,” the restaurant’s owner, Lu Wen-yong, explained in a mix of Mandarin and Taiwanese, a Chinese dialect that is many locals’ first language. “Country folk are shy and not good at expressing themselves, but if you get to know them, you see they’re people of private passions.”

The passions on display at C’est Bon, possibly the most ambitious restaurant in Taipei, were hardly private. At first glance, C’est Bon might seem pretentious, with its French name (its Chinese name translates as the Way of Eating), its quirky décor (a potatoesque boulder hangs from one white wall, and a torso-shaped bamboo log, nicknamed Adam, sits submerged in a glass vase) and its waiters sporting skirt-like pants and T-shirts adorned with a single pink feather. And the chef Chuang Yue-jiau’s shaved head and thick black eyeglasses could certainly give the impression she’s a hipster dilettante.

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A woman walks past C'est Bon.


But Ms. Chuang, who opened C’est Bon in 2002 with the photographer Hsieh Chun-te, is Taiwan’s most devoted locavore. She hires family farmers to raise pigs just for her. The snow chickens come from a farm 10,000 feet up Hehuan Mountain. The fish is speared only at night, in the wild currents north of Taiwan. She even grows her own rice in Yilan County, using beneficial micro-organisms to make it especially plump and flavorful.

None of this would matter if her cooking weren’t exquisite — but it is. The multicourse set menu began with what looked like a block of tofu swimming in a pool of chicken broth. One bite proved this wasn’t soy but rather eggs and chicken kidneys whipped together and steamed into a cake that tasted, oddly but pleasurably, just like matzo ball soup minus the heaviness of the matzo meal. At the same time, it tasted wholly, inescapably Taiwanese.

What followed were dishes of equal innovation and purity: a purée of squid accompanied by a fat black mushroom that had been stewed for an entire day; a duck-taro-and-shrimp pancake with a sweet plum sauce and shiso leaves. It all culminated with a little bowl of cherry tomatoes. They’d been grown below sea level, in a field fed by both fresh and saltwater, and Ms. Chuang had macerated them until the sugars took on a sweetness deeper and richer than any standard dessert.

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Spinach, tofu, fried ginger and pickled vegetables wrapped in pork at C'est Bon.


Two days later, I returned to C’est Bon to ask Ms. Chuang the question I’d asked everyone in Taipei: What exactly is Taiwanese food? In response, she told me about lu rou fan. It is, perhaps, the simplest dish ever: ground pork, stewed in soy sauce and served over rice. Yet there are infinite permutations. (I once ate it three times in a single day; the best was at San Yuen Hao.) In fact, it was lu rou fan that began Ms. Chuang’s career as a chef. She’d once sold it from a street stall, working tirelessly to perfect the dish, and her pursuit of the best rice, meat and spices eventually paid off, enabling her to create C’est Bon.

Then her waiters brought out her special lu rou fan. Like everything else, it was amazing, a peasant dish elevated to the highest levels. The pork was meaty and sweet, and fragments of crispy fat nestled like microscopic rock candies amid the toothsome grains of rice.

As I swooned, I remembered something my mother-in-law had said back at Old Wang’s while I was devouring my noodle soup. It was just two words — “kou fu” — and I’d turned to my wife for a translation.

“‘Lucky mouth,’” Jean explained. “She means you’re having a good week of eating.”

START YOUR DAY WITH THE BREAKFAST OF THE SOY MILK KING

HOW TO GET THERE

Many airlines fly to Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport from the New York City area. For late September, EVA Airlines (www.evaair.com) has round trips with outbound flights stopping in Anchorage and nonstop returns for around $1,100.

Travelers should be aware that in Taiwan Chinese is still mostly converted into the Latin alphabet using the Wade-Giles system, but transliterations in pinyin, adopted by Beijing in 1979, are sometimes used. Chung Hsiao Road, for example, is sometimes rendered as Zhongxiao Road.

WHERE TO STAY

Several big, relatively luxurious chains have arrived or been renovated in Taipei the last few years, including the Sheraton (12 Chung Hsiao East Road, Section 1; 886-2-2321-5511; www.sheraton-taipei.com; doubles from 6,900 Taiwanese dollars, or about $210 at 32.63 Taiwanese dollars to the American dollar) and the Grand Hyatt (2 Song Shou Road; 886-2-2720-1234; www.taipei.grand.hyatt.com; doubles from 8,100 Taiwanese dollars). There are a number of boutique hotels like the Ambience (64 Chang-An East Road, Section 1; 886-2-2541-0077; www.ambiencehotel.com.tw; doubles from 2,760 Taiwanese dollars), whose rooms have Philippe Starck furnishings.

Those looking for a middle path between size and style might consider the San Want Hotel (172 Chung Hsiao East Road, Section 4; 886-2-2772-2121; www.sanwant.com; doubles from 5,600 Taiwanese dollars), a cozy, smartly run hotel in the middle of Chung Hsiao East Road, one of Taipei’s biggest shopping and eating districts.

WHERE TO EAT

Eating in Taipei is not only delicious but affordable, thanks to the relatively stable exchange rate. Most sit-down restaurants will have English translations on their menus (or English-speaking employees) and will accept MasterCard and Visa, but you should bring cash and your best point-at-what-you-want skills to informal places like Ay-Chung and Old Wang. Prices below do not include drinks.

AoBa, 116 Anhe Road, Section 1; 886-2-2700-0009; www.aoba.com.tw; multicourse set menus for four start at 2,800 Taiwanese dollars.

Ay-Chung, 8-1 E-Mei Street; 886-2-2388-8182; www.ay-chung.com;, small bowls of mian xian are 40 Taiwanese dollars, big ones are 55 dollars.

C’est Bon, 23 Lane 33 Chung-Shang North Road, Section 1;886-2-2531-6408; www.cestbon.com.tw; the multicourse set menu is 2,200 Taiwanese dollars a person.

Chuan Guo, 52 Jianguo North Road, Section 2; 886-2-2506-3622; 600 Taiwanese dollars a person.

Eat Rice Center, 5 Lane 8, Yongkang Street; 886-2-2322-2632; www.sit-fun.com.tw; 300 Taiwanese dollars apiece.

Kiki, multiple locations, www.kiki1991.com; 400 Taiwanese dollars a person.

Mei’s Tea Bar, 16 Lane 37 Yongkang Street; 886-2-2394-2425.

Old Wang Beef Noodle Soup King, 15 Taoyuan Street; a bowl of beef noodle soup is 140 Taiwanese dollars.

San Yuen Hao, 9-11 Chongqing North Road, Section 2; 886-2-2558-9685; 100 Taiwanese dollars a person.

Yonghe Soy Milk King, 102 Fuxing South Road, Section 2; 886-2-2703-5051; 100 Taiwanese dollars a person.

MATT GROSS writes the Frugal Traveler column for the Travel section.

Thanks everyone for all the articles! I just came back from 2 1/2 weeks in Taiwan and checked these articles out before leaving! Had a couple of meals at the Sheraton and lots of the street vendors food, it was delicious! Now I have to be on a diet for a while to lose all the weight I've put on this trip...

But it was great being able to see TK's Olympus commercial on TV (as well as Takuya Kimura's Levi's and Leehom Wang's MP3 player commercials) and all the coverage on the "Red Cliff" red carpet glitz on the Tokyo Film Festival as part of the local 8 o'clock news (not something you'd see in the US, movie premieres on the news, I mean). Going to the malls' cosmetic section, TK's face was all over the place on the Biotherm counters, as you can imagine.

But what was really cool was that TK was one of the featured artists on the 'China Airlines' In-Flight Entertainment magazine and I was already so excited about it that I only realized much later that that was because "Red Cliff" was one of the available movie features, but just not on MY flight!! bangwall :fiery :censored (Miki, do we not have an emoticon for crying our eyeballs out?)

Anyway... I'll try to find a scanner to upload the article here (wish me luck!), although it seems to be just a recompilation of old interviews. But I can't shake the idea of how cool it'd been if that movie were to be available on-flight... Oy, one can only dream... :P

(Please feel free to move this entry to another place, if appropriate)

Great Geka :clap ...please feel free to tel us more about your trip.

And don't worry too much about the article ;)